I need to take a closer look at the Cisco offerings. We are a big IBM shop with a lot of Bladecenters. If we will need to invest into a new chassis, I figured that we should look at what Cisco has. This, IMO, makes it more important that we do so.

It doesn't surprise me that IBM is exiting low-end servers, or that Lenovo is the top suitor. Lenovo's had aspirations for a couple years now to build up its server biz. But I wonder where the hardware sell-off will end for IBM, and if in 5 years IBM will just be a pure software and services company.

But I wonder where the hardware sell-off will end for IBM, and if in 5 years IBM will just be a pure software and services company.

It has been moving towards becoming a software and services company with no US employees for several years now.

True, IBM's Global Services biz has been the biggest revenue source for maybe a decade now, and they've made a lot of software acquisitions recently. But I would think Big Blue would want to retain *some* hardware to retain that hold on the enterprise data center/infrastructure. Otherwise, I suspect businesses who bought servers/networking from HP, Cisco, Dell, etc., would just turn over the IT services/maintenance/support contracts to the folks whose name is on the hardware rather than a third party in IBM.

The server sales slowdown doesn't surprise me one bit. This should be considered inevitable due to the double punch of density increasing virtualization tech and clouded offerings. Both of those technologies result in less hardware in the server room.

Anecdotally, The first three years I was in my current role my priorities were to shrink my server count by 10% each year. I did buy new servers, but not as many had my mandate been to maintain.

Good Lord IBM how about selling to an American company or a non-Chinese one for a change? It's bad enough you sold your PC business to them and now you want to sell more of your company to them? Considering who truly controls Chinese companies this kind of thing shouldn't even be allowed.

Good Lord IBM how about selling to an American company or a non-Chinese one for a change? It's bad enough you sold your PC business to them and now you want to sell more of your company to them? Considering who truly controls Chinese companies this kind of thing shouldn't even be allowed.

Having lived in China for a year, I can assure you, in terms of technology this means nothing. China still has a very long way to go. There tech sector still fails in comparison to almost every where else in the developed world. There are a few big cities that give the appearance of an advanced tech sector but that is it. Plus the huge majority of the electronics are of very bad quality.

What will IBM do now? Just supercomputers? I don't get it… I thought their business was Server after exiting consumber market. What's left?

My thoughts exactly. In the past, IBM's expertise with hardware is what drove their necessity for software. Going from Hardware -> Hardware/Software -> Software seems like a step down. I mean just what software does IBM even make? I don't even know. Also I don't see losing the hardware division expertise and particularly helpful on the software front. That seems like at best the software quality remains neutral and you save a little money and at worst your lack of hardware expertise leaves you hopelessly out of touch.

quote="[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=24326169#p24326169]Flashlight[/url]"]Good Lord IBM how about selling to an American company or a non-Chinese one for a change? It's bad enough you sold your PC business to them and now you want to sell more of your company to them? Considering who truly controls Chinese companies this kind of thing shouldn't even be allowed.

Quote:

Having lived in China for a year, I can assure you, in terms of technology this means nothing. China still has a very long way to go. There tech sector still fails in comparison to almost every where else in the developed world. There are a few big cities that give the appearance of an advanced tech sector but that is it. Plus the huge majority of the electronics are of very bad quality.

No, it means everything. America, other Western countries, and Japan have already given away way too much too a country that persecutes, imprisons and murders its own people for simply expressing opinions. It's just a matter of time where they will use that knowledge and those acquired companies to extend their influence and corruption to other countries. Actually, they are already doing that.

I think some people forget that x86 is a relatively small part of IBM's hardware business. IBM still has P and Z systems, that's where most of their R&D goes, that's where most of their IP is, that's where most of their money is made, that's where most of the value is. They may yet turn into a software company in the long run, but right now it seems to me that they are firmly committed to P and Z and shedding a lower margin business that was putting money in their competitor's pocket (Intel).

Maybe IBM has seen the writing on the wall for commodity hardware, what with cloud tech abstracting away individual servers to a large extent. It would make sense to sell the division before it falls further in value.

They invest a lot in new technologies and IP, including radically new architectures that could blow x86 out of the water. They're a major player in AI, as well. Maybe they know something we don't.

Respectfully disagree. I think of all the major OEMs out there, Lenovo done arguably the best job of making quality PCs the last few years. You could have made the argument before 2010, maybe, that the company was just using the ThinkPad brand and churning out mediocre systems, but not now.

You know, if Lenovo's buying all of IBM's old stuff, and IBM seems to be on the "we're just going to be software and services" kick, the two may as well just trade names. The IBM name can go where it makes sense, since it doesn't fit a "software and services" ideal. Well, that and it'd be one more thing that the idiots at Big Blue can do to continue the destruction of a formerly-hallowed business.

Maybe IBM has seen the writing on the wall for commodity hardware, what with cloud tech abstracting away individual servers to a large extent. It would make sense to sell the division before it falls further in value.

They invest a lot in new technologies and IP, including radically new architectures that could blow x86 out of the water. They're a major player in AI, as well. Maybe they know something we don't.

Solid business move, IMHO.

The kind of business they do at least in my country is basically oriented around mainframes and POWER based servers - long story short it is IBM realising what its strengths are and being a commodity low margin x86 server producer isn't one of those just as Oracle has pretty much killed off their Opteron product range in favour of pushing their SPARC T5 based products. In the x86 market you either sink or swim based on volume - the idea of commanding a premium for x86 hardware is pretty much coming to an end as penny pinching CIO's decide that 'cheap shit' is better than spending money on quality because of the old saying, "penny wise and pound foolish".

But for how long? If I were a CIO, I'd try to move my mainframe jobs into the cloud.

Then you sell to cloud providers, and mainframes can do a pretty good job at that kind of workload.

As far as hosted environments go, though (Amazon S3, etc.), isn't it a more modular setup with oftentimes custom hardware? One of the larger Web hosting firms a client of mine uses boasts of their custom-designed hardware in their datacenters.

For the heavy hitters such as Google, IIRC, there has been a push toward more expendable components in their facilities, as well--which is good for them (hardware failure bites a lot less, financially), but not for high-margin OEMs like IBM.

Doesn't seem like any of this is surprising--it simply is a progression to commodity, like in the desktop market.

It works well for me everyday. If you have problems maybe it's your admins fault.

I just picked up a small company (25 users) that uses an old Lotus Approach DB for their order system. We can't find anyone who knows or wants to make changes/additions. You want a side job?

On another note, I literally just received my Lenovo partner introduction kit from FedEx 20 minutes ago. Mostly I am looking for an alternative to Dell for office desktops/laptops/entry level servers. This news sounds good. Looks like I'll have more choices for the kinds of servers I buy for SOHO customers.

I worked at IBM in the x86 server division in North Carolina when they sold the laptop/desktop division to Lenovo. Mass panic. Kind of funny. It's possibly different now, but it was a real sh*t show then. It's all legacy customers buying IBM because they've always bought IBM. That job almost ruined my faith in the profession.

What will IBM do now? Just supercomputers? I don't get it… I thought their business was Server after exiting consumber market. What's left?

They'll still have zOS and Mainframes. There is a lot of money in that market.

But for how long? If I were a CIO, I'd try to move my mainframe jobs into the cloud.

Do you understand where the value is in mainframes?What you are paying for when you buy such a machine (HW and SW) is (a) a crazy level of reliability and(b) a crazy level of IO performance.

This obviously does not matter to many markets --- the cost of that reliability is too high --- but it DOES matter to other markets, and you're a fool to claim otherwise. (The second issue, the IO performance, is likely a point of vulnerability in the future, but the reliability remains king for now.)

BTW, IBM also has a business in supercomputers and in high end (POWER-based) scientific machines.Once again you and I don't need such machines at home to check email and watch movies, but it's silly to claim that therefore such machines have no place in the modern world.

Once you get into the world of such machines, you're dealing with a whole set of concerns that are very different from desktop machines. Yes, the basic CPU units of these machines are more or less commodity chips (x86 or some POWER variant), but that's not where the difficulty and value of the machines is. The magic (and the cost, and all the engineering brainpower) is in the interconnects linking the CPUs together, in the memory system, and in the cache coherency system. To claim that you could wire up such a machine yourself for a few tens of thousands of dollars just shows a massive ignorance of the actual issues relevant to creating such a machine.

Not sure why people see it as IBM abandoning their future / the computer market. IBM were never all that keen on the PC market anyway. This new move is going back to their roots in heavy data processing and big iron. IIRC IBM have only been making PCs for less than a half to a third of their company history in the heavy data processing industry.

Not sure why people see it as IBM abandoning their future / the computer market. IBM were never all that keen on the PC market anyway. This new move is going back to their roots in heavy data processing and big iron. IIRC IBM have only been making PCs for less than a half to a third of their company history in the heavy data processing industry.

Apotheker's attempt to get HP out of the PC business was wildly deginerated as a poor decision by the tech world.

I think some people forget that x86 is a relatively small part of IBM's hardware business. IBM still has P and Z systems, that's where most of their R&D goes, that's where most of their IP is, that's where most of their money is made, that's where most of the value is. They may yet turn into a software company in the long run, but right now it seems to me that they are firmly committed to P and Z and shedding a lower margin business that was putting money in their competitor's pocket (Intel).

^^ This. x86 never was IBM main hardware line. And with all the recent cloud moving, it's a renewed market for mainframes, where IBM truly shines.